


A Flerken Ate My Sonic

by NewNewDoctor (DisnerdingAvenger)



Series: The Physician and His Flower [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Post-Episode: s02e11 Fear Her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/NewNewDoctor
Summary: Rose Tyler insists upon keeping a certain ginger cat when it finds its way onto the TARDIS from London, 2012. The Doctor doesn't trust the ginger cat - with good reason, as it turns out.





	A Flerken Ate My Sonic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoctorFitzy (KittooningMalijah)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittooningMalijah/gifts).



> Alexa made me do it.

“Long jump! Love me a good long jump. Nothing quite like it.”

Jauntily bounding onto the TARDIS, the Doctor was still babbling about the several Olympic events that they had born witness to. As Rose trailed along after him, watching him bounce about the control room, she thought to herself with an amused smirk that the Doctor in one of his particularly Doctor-y moods could give any long-jumper a run for their money. He was practically a Tigger, what with how he bounced about when he was feeling exceptionally cheerful.

“Oh, I dunno. I’m rather fond of all the running,” she mused, tossing the Doctor a cheeky grin as she came to lean up against the console. The Doctor, who was already flipping switches and turning dials, paused in his efforts to toss her a grin of his own, asking, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His grin growing, the Doctor threw a final switch and sent the TARDIS back into the time vortex before grabbing onto Rose’s hand, giving her a playful twirl beneath his arm that sent her into a fit of giggles.

“You _are_ in a good mood, aren’t you?” she asked, her hands coming to rest at his forearms, and he flashed her a brilliant smile as he folded his own hands behind his back.

“How could I not be? I’ve got my TARDIS, got my Rose, got my…”

Trailing off, the Doctor’s cheerful expression melted into one that was clearly perplexed. Pointedly sniffing the air, he frowned.

“What is _that?_ ”

“What’s what?” Rose asked, her hands still at the Doctor’s arms as she glanced around, giving the air a timid sniff of her own. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

“That _smell,_ ” the Doctor insisted, moving out of Rose’s grasp and circling the console, continuing to sniff the air like a bloodhound.

It was almost comical, watching him. Arching an eyebrow, Rose crossed her arms over her chest, stating, “Doctor, there’s no-”

“There is! There’s a _smell_. Something… Something _small_ , and…” Sniffing the air again, more pointedly this time, he finished, “ _ginger_.”

“Small and ginger?” Rose repeated, arching an eyebrow as she dropped herself down to sit on the jump seat. “Like a biscuit?”

“Not _that_ kind of ginger,” the Doctor scoffed, dropping down onto his hands and knees on the grating as he followed whatever smell his ‘superior Time Lord senses’ had picked up on. “Ginger as in ginger _hair._ Like, like… oh, _no._ ”

“Doctor?”

“ _No_ ,” the Doctor repeated after having crawled about for a few moments. He’d stopped in a darker corner of the control room and he looked rather like a dog that was ready to pounce.

“Doctor, what is it? What’d you find?” Rose asked again, getting up to walk over and stand behind him – just in time to see him sit up on his haunches, scowling, as he held up a certain ginger cat by the scruff of its neck.

“A _stowaway_ ,” he sneered, glaring daggers at the wriggling feline in his grasp. Almost instantaneously, Rose started cooing and dropped down to her knees, as well, reaching out to take the cat from him. He let her take it, seemingly disgusted just by touching the thing. Rose, however, was thrilled. The cat, which had been extremely displeased to find itself in the Doctor's grasp, preened as soon as Rose was holding it and allowed her to rub its belly as she held it like a baby in her arms.

“Oh, he’s a _beautiful_ stowaway, though. Yes, he is! Yes, he is!” she continued to coo, kissing the cat’s nose, and the Doctor huffed. He’d meant it when he said he wasn’t overly fond of cats – and he _certainly_ wasn’t overly fond of the idea of having a cat _on his ship._

“We’ll have to turn around and take it back,” he stated as he rose to his feet, walking over to the console to start punching in the coordinates. Rose, still fawning over the cat, gave her head a shake.

“He hasn’t got any tags.”

“Hasn’t got any-? Rose, it’s a _cat._ It belongs on Earth. Dragging it about through time and space could cause the unintentional introduction of a species into a place in which it doesn’t belong.”

Arching an eyebrow, Rose asked, “And what would you call dragging _me_ through time and space to places where humans don’t belong? Hmmm?”

Pausing, the Doctor frowned at her logic.

“That’s… That’s _different._ I don't have to worry about you running off, or - …well, I suppose that’s not true, but… but… it’s _different._ ” Grasping at straws, he finally snapped his fingers and declared, “I never have any intention of _leaving_ you on the planets that we visit, to mingle with the natural ecosystem and… to _mate._ ”

_Was the Doctor blushing? It certainly looked like he was blushing._

Taking a deep breath in through his nose, the Doctor finished in a rush, “The point that I’m trying to make is that, if you run off, I can find you easily enough. You stick out. But a cat? Cats are _small,_ and _sneaky_ , and… It’s a bad idea, Rose. We’re taking it back.”

Resuming throwing switches and turning dials, the Doctor considered the case closed. Rose, however, had other thoughts.

“We can’t just _drop him off_ somewhere all on his own. He hasn’t got any tags!”

“You’ve said that already,” the Doctor responded, only half-listening.

“He _hasn’t got any tags,_ Doctor,” Rose repeated, running a gentle hand over the cat’s ginger head. “That means he _hasn’t got a home._ He’s got no one to take care of him. How is chucking him out all on his own _not_ a bad idea? Sounds like a rubbish one, if you ask me.”

“Rose…”

Looking down at the cat, frowning, Rose mumbled, “I’m just sayin’.”

“Rose, we _can’t_.”

His hand was poised on the lever that would send them back to London, 2012 when Rose looked up at him – with her big, sad brown eyes and that sad, disappointed pout and…

Groaning, the Doctor took a step back and held up his hands in surrender.

“Fine! The cat _can stay_ , if it means so bloody much to you. But if it runs off on some far-flung planet, I _refuse_ to go searching for it. I refuse, Rose – I refuse!”

Grinning when the Doctor finally caved, Rose hopped up to her feet, the cat still in her arms as she ventured over to his side.

“You’re just a big softy, y’know,” she mused with a cheeky smile and the Doctor huffed, running a hand through his hair and tugging at his earlobe.

“I mean it; I refuse to go searching for it.”

“Mmmhmmm,” Rose hummed, smirking and pressing a kiss to the Doctor’s cheek. “Softy.”

_The Doctor was most definitely blushing._

* * *

It actually wasn’t all that bad, having a cat about (much to the Doctor’s surprise). Rose had named it ‘Chewie’, on account of it being their resident furry co-pilot, and Chewie was a remarkably good companion. He didn’t wander off, he listened when you told him to shoo, and he was extremely good at snuggling, which the Doctor found he was quite fond of this time around.

Chewie gave the Doctor somebody to talk to whilst he tinkered and Rose slept; he would just sit on the jump seat, his ginger tail swishing back and forth, while the Doctor did this and that. Overall, he had no complaints about their fuzzy new mate – aside from, perhaps, the fact that Chewie had begun to commandeer a reasonable chunk of Rose’s affection... but that would be silly. A Time Lord would never be jealous of a _cat…_

It wasn’t until roughly a month after they allowed Chewie to stick around that the Doctor began to notice things were going missing. A wrench from his toolkit here, one of Rose’s lipsticks there – little things that easily could have been misplaced, but which both were sure they had _just seen_ a moment ago…

The Doctor never considered that there could be any correlation between Chewie and their missing items. Not until something far more significant disappeared – something the Doctor was _certain_ he had not misplaced.

It was April 26th – the eve of Rose Tyler’s twenty-first birthday – and the Doctor had plans. _Oh, yes,_ he had plans. Plans that were going to stun her, make her giddy, blow her pretty pink and yellow mind – plans that, perhaps, even might have earned him a kiss on the cheek. (Perhaps even more.)

Rose had gone to bed a few hours prior, thoroughly exhausted from all of the running they had done that day – a feat which had been entirely intentional. With Rose Tyler out like a light, soundly tucked in and dozing comfortably, he’d been left with plenty of time to put his new body’s baking skills to the test and to make sure everything was ready for the morning.

But when he walked into the galley on April 27th, expecting to see the bright pink cake he’d spent all night making waiting on the counter, prominently on display, the Doctor was horrified to see no such cake where he had left it the night before. It had vanished, seemingly without a trace – but that was _impossible!_ Looking up at the ceiling, pulling at his hair, the Doctor asked, “Did _you_ do this? Because it’s not funny. Put it back right now!”

The TARDIS gave a negative hum in the back of his mind, emphasizing that she wasn’t behind the cake’s disappearance. The Doctor grumbled with irritation, turning on his heel to walk from the galley and back to his bedroom. No matter; whatever had become of the cake could be resolved easily enough. He would make up for it by making breakfast and giving Rose her birthday gift early; afterward, he could whisk them off to Sontar and _buy_ her the best birthday cake that she'd ever tasted.

Of course, that plan required that he was able to _find_ Rose’s birthday gift. If he was disgruntled before, he was downright panicked now. He had left it on his bedside table last night after putting the finishing touches on the wrapping; there was _no way_ that he could have misplaced it. Tearing his room apart and turning virtually everything upside down, the Doctor searched frantically for the small pink box wrapped with a shimmering silver ribbon – because its contents were _important._

This wasn’t just any old run-of-the-mill birthday present. In the small pink box wrapped with a shimmering silver ribbon was a necklace – but not just any necklace. It was a large pendant that he had spent weeks moulding and soldering, shaping the silver into a locket. Engraved, painstakingly, on one side of the locket was the Gallifreyan symbol for _“run”_ and, on the other side, the Gallifreyan symbol for _“love”_ – because the Doctor loved Rose Tyler. The Doctor loved Rose Tyler and he had planned to finally pluck up the courage and tell her so -  _today_  - when she inevitably asked what the symbols on the locket meant.

Inside of the locket was a piece of the TARDIS’s coral that the ship had obligingly sacrificed, happy to be a part of the symbolic gesture; it was meant to be a way for Rose to keep their home close to her heart, no matter where in the universe she was.

It was the perfect birthday present, and it was _gone_. It was just _gone._

Dejectedly sitting back on his haunches on the floor in the middle of the wreck that was his bedroom, the Doctor made a miserable little noise. Chewie chose that moment to trot into the room, brushing himself beneath the Doctor’s arm and coming to sit in front of him. He looked… strangely _pleased_ with himself.

Frowning and narrowing his eyes, the Doctor asked, “Why do you look like the cat that just ate the canary?”

Chewie just purred, flicking his tail as the Doctor stared at him. It was then that the Time Lord noticed a small fleck of pink frosting clinging to the cat's ginger ear.

The Doctor’s eyes widened.

“No. What? _No!_ No - that’s _impossible._ That cake was _huge,_ and just look at you! You’re a cat! You couldn’t eat an _entire cake_ in a few hours. You’re… You’re a _cat!_ ”

Chewie responded by lying down on the floor and rolling onto his back, belly up. He looked like a cat. He acted like a cat. But…

Pursing his lips, staring at that teasing fleck of frosting, the Doctor asked, “…or _are_ you?”

Pulling his sonic screwdriver out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket, the Doctor fiddled with the settings before pointing it at Chewie. The whirring that resonated from the device made the cat roll over and hiss – and, seconds later, Chewie had unhinged his jaw like a snake and leapt at the Doctor’s hand. Startled, he’d drawn his hand back and dropped his screwdriver –

\- only to watch Chewie swallow it whole, seemingly not at all bothered by the action. The Doctor gave a shout and jumped to his feet, pointing accusingly at the “cat” with wide eyes.

“ _Oh!_ Oh, oh, _oh!_ I knew it! _I knew it!_ I _knew_ there was something off about you; I could _smell it!_ You’re no _cat_ ; you’re a _Flerken!_ ”

His shouting had evidently been enough to wake Rose, whose bedroom wasn’t far down the hall; still clad in her pink vest top and blue pyjama shorts, she padded into the Doctor’s topsy-turvy bedroom and rubbed her eyes, frowning as she yawned.

“What’s all the yellin’ about-? _Bloody hell!_ ” Rose exclaimed when she took in the state of the Doctor’s room before her, her previously tired eyes widening to the size of saucers. She was most definitely awake now. “What the hell happened in here?!”

“A Flerken ate my sonic, that’s what!” the Doctor shouted, crouching down again and glaring at Chewie, pointing a threatening finger in his direction.

“A _what?_ ” Rose asked, but the Doctor wasn’t paying attention to her. He had far more pressing matters to deal with.

“Cough it up,” he snapped, scowling pointedly. “Cough it up and give it back _right now_ – and don’t look at me like that, I _know_ that you can. Spit it out! Give it back to me, or I swear I’ll dump you in deep space and leave you there!”

“Doctor, what in _hell_ are you playing at? Is this some kind of _joke_ -?” Rose asked, trailing off when, clearly not wishing to be dumped out somewhere with no oxygen, Chewie coughed up the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver as if it were nothing more than a hairball – and, along with it, coughed up Rose’s birthday present, still wrapped, having been swallowed whole. The cake, however, the Flerken kept for itself.

Grumbling, plucking his screwdriver off of the floor with his thumb and index finger, the Doctor turned his nose up as he stared at the bile-covered device, slime dripping from it and down onto the floor.

“Just when I thought cats were starting to grow on me…” he muttered, getting to his feet to go and wipe his screwdriver off with a towel from the ensuite bathroom. Rose was staring at Chewie as if he might try to eat her next – which, if the Flerken hadn’t been so fond of her, it very well could have done.

“How… How did it…?” she asked, blinking rapidly, and the Doctor shook his head when he returned, towelling the sonic off.

“It’s not a cat, Rose; it just _looks_ like a cat. Remember what I said about it being _bad_ to introduce a foreign species into an unfamiliar ecosystem?” Pocketing his sonic again, the Doctor strolled over to stand at Rose’s side, hands in his trouser pockets as he frowned down at the Flerken, which was now diligently grooming itself.

“Yeah…?”

“Well, what you’re looking at right now is a Flerken; essentially the feline-esque version of a TARDIS. Inside of that little alien’s little belly is a _big_ pocket dimension; it could gobble up entire worlds, if it wanted to, and not even get indigestion. _Somebody_ left it on Earth, and now here we are.”

Rose took a small, involuntary step backward.

“I… I _snuggled_ with that thing. I let it sleep in my bed!”

As if sensing her distress, Chewie got up and padded over to Rose, affectionately rubbing up against her leg. She gaped down at it and the Doctor sighed.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. It likes you. Must like me, too, given it hasn’t tried to eat either of us while being on board.”

Realizing neither the Doctor nor Rose was going to pet him at the moment, Chewie slipped out of the room and down the hall, heading off to either eat the contents of an entire room or take a cat nap.

“So… our cat’s not a cat,” Rose breathed, staring at the door Chewie had disappeared through.

“Not quite, no.”

Her shoulders sagging, Rose asked, “Aren’t you gonna say it?”

Furrowing his brow, hands still in his pockets, the Doctor asked, “Say what?”

“You know. _I told you so. Told you that cat would cause a fuss. Told you it was bad news. But did you listen, Rose? Oh, no, nobody ever listens to the Doctor, even though I’m always right_ …”

“ _Well_ …” Rubbing the back of his neck, the Doctor glanced around at the mess he’d made of his room, musing, “I _am_ always right, but… I don’t know. I grew rather fond of the thing. He’s quite cuddly... y’know, for a world-gobbler.”

The smallest of smiles pulling at her lips, Rose gave an amused shake of her head before her gaze finally fell on the _other_ object their Flerken had coughed up – pink, wrapped with a silver ribbon, and coated in a layer of slime.

“What’s that, then?” she asked, gesturing to it.

“Hmm?” the Doctor asked, glancing down when Rose pointed. His eyes widened. He’d been so preoccupied with getting his sonic back that he hadn’t even noticed Chewie relinquished the present, as well. _“Oh!”_ Bending down, he picked it up and wrinkled his nose at the slime that clung to the box. “Er… well…”

Unsure of what to do, he thrust it in her direction, quite certain that the contents of the box would have remained intact. “Happy birthday, Rose Tyler.”

Gaping at the token he was trying to bestow upon her, Rose blushed and accepted it, making a face of her own at the slimy residue that clung to her fingers. Leave it to the Doctor to give her a birthday present covered in Flerken goo.

“Thank you, I suppose…” she mused, plucking at the gooey ribbon until she was able to peel it from the box and lift the lid.

Her disgust was quickly replaced with a startled look of awe when she saw what was _inside_ of the box. Wiping one of her hands on her top, she reached into the box with her dry fingers and pulled out the locket by its chain, clearly stunned as she let the box fall to the floor amid the rest of the Doctor’s mess.

“Doctor, I… It’s _beautiful_ ,” she breathed, taking the locket in her palm and turning it over, examining the symbols engraved in the silver. “The writing - it's Gallifreyan, yeah?”

“Indeed,” the Doctor agreed, quirking his lips up in a grin when Rose met his gaze.

“What’s it mean?”

“Well,” the Doctor mused, coming to stand beside her, gazing over her shoulder and pointing at the symbols, trailing a fingertip over them as he translated. “This one means _run_ ,” he explained, smirking when Rose looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. He thought she’d like that.

“And _this one…_ ” he continued, turning the locket over in her palm to point to the other side. He could feel his twin-hearts beating a bit faster, the words briefly catching in his throat. He could easily sell her some cock-and-bull story about what it meant and she would be none the wiser – but that would be cowardly, and the Doctor was tired of keeping everything bottled up. What good was it doing either of them? Running a hand through his hair, his cheeks flushed slightly red, he explained, “This one means _love_.”

Looking down at the locket again, Rose was silent as she brushed her thumb over the engraved silver. Her cheeks were turning that lovely shade of pink that the Doctor liked so much, and finally she asked, “Love, as in…?”

“As in you. And me. Er, rather – as in me to you. How I feel, that is. Love. I, ehm…” Properly blushing now, the Doctor finally blurted out, “I love you, Rose Tyler. Quite a lot. I just thought that you should kno-”

Rose chose that moment to latch onto the lapels of the Doctor’s suit jacket, tugging his lips down to hers in a searing kiss. Making a surprised little noise against her lips, he happily obliged and wound his arms around her back to kiss her deeply in return. It was extremely tempting to keep kissing her, and to _continue_ kissing her forever, but the Doctor wanted Rose to get the _full effect_ of her birthday present. Forcing them to part, the Doctor drew back and whispered, “Open it; open the locket.”

Reasonably breathless and equally dazed, Rose stared at the Doctor for a moment before looking down at the locket still clutched in her hand. Smiling as she looked at the symbols again, she pushed the clasp on the side with her thumb and let it pop open, staring for a long moment down at the contents of her birthday present.

“…is that-?”

“TARDIS coral,” the Doctor confirmed, his arms still wound around her. “So you can keep our home close to your heart, no matter where you are.”

Tears were prickling in the corners of Rose’s eyes.

“Doctor, it’s… _wonderful_ ,” she whispered with a sniffle, closing the locket again before shifting in his arms so her back was pressed to his chest. “Help me put it on?”

Grinning, arguably _more_ pleased with himself than the cat who ate the canary (or the Flerken who ate the sonic screwdriver), the Doctor took the locket from Rose and brushed her hair over one shoulder, clasping it behind her neck. She smiled brightly as she looked down at the gift, touching it delicately as it fell near the centre of her chest.

“It’s perfect,” she stated, tilting her head back to beam up at the Doctor. “It’s all perfect. The _best_ birthday a girl could ever wake up to.”

Grinning goofily down at Rose, still riding the high from their kiss and from her reaction to the present, the Doctor’s expression slipped slightly when her words registered with him.

“It could’ve been _more_ perfect,” he stated, practically pouting. “I made you a cake. Stayed up all night baking it. It was _pink_ and had sprinkles made of actual pixie glitter from Fortuna, and you would’ve loved it.”

Furrowing her brow, hand still poised over her locket, Rose asked, “I _would’ve_ loved it?”

Properly pouting now, the Doctor hid his face against Rose’s shoulder, dejectedly mumbling, “The Flerken ate it.”

And as Chewie lay curled up on Rose’s unmade bed, dozing happily, he conceded that the cake had been quite good, too. He just couldn’t let the Doctor steal Rose’s attention away with it.

_Time Lords might not get jealous, but Flerkens do._


End file.
